Excerpt from House of Names by Colm Toibin, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

And then he picked Orestes up and laughed and carried him towards Iphigenia.

He was all charm when he turned to Iphigenia. And it was as if a miracle had occurred when I looked at her, as if some woman had come unbidden onto the earth with an aura of tenderness mixed with reserve, with a distance from common things. Her father moved to embrace her, still holding the boy, and if anyone then had wanted to know what love looked like, if anyone going into battle needed an image of love to take with them to protect them or spur them on, it was here for them, like something precious cut in stone—the father, the son, the daughter, the mother watching fondly, the look of longing on the father's face with all the mystery of love, and its warmth, its purity, as he gently let his son down to stand beside him so that Agamemnon could hold his daughter in his arms.

I saw it and I am certain of it. In those seconds it was there. But it was false.

None of us who had traveled, however, guessed the truth for one second, even though some of the others standing around, maybe even most of them, must have known it. But not one of them gave a sign, not a single sign.

The sky remained blue, the sun hot in the sky, and the gods—oh yes, the gods!—seemed to be smiling on our family that day, on the bride-to-be and her young brother, on me, and on her father as he stood in the embrace of love, as he would stand eventually in the victory of battle with his army triumphant. Yes, the gods smiled that day as we came in all innocence to help Agamemnon execute his plan.

Excerpted from House of Names by Colm Toibin. Copyright © 2017 by Colm Toibin. Reprinted with permission of Scribner, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.